April 26, 2005
All Quiet on the Western Front
It’s been quiet here at MacZealots for the past few weeks. You may have been wondering where we have been, what we are doing, and why have we not been putting anything on the site. Well, all our secrets will now be revealed!
This Friday at 6:01 p.m., exactly one minute after the release of Tiger, we will be relaunching our website. For the past several weeks the MacZealots crew has been working day and night revising the MacZealots website to meet both your needs and ours. Here’s a quick outline of what you can expect.
What you wanted
Spotlight On Search
One of the areas that you have been asking for improvement is in search. Previously, search was only available at the bottom of each article. We have now moved search to display prominently at the top of each page on our site. This makes it much easier to find what you are looking for. Our search results are more reliable as well.
MacZealots RSS
On the old site we had four RSS feeds: one for each section of the site. We have received numerous requests for a single RSS feed. We’ve heard those requests, and you can now find one RSS feed that satisfies your Maczealots appetitie. Along with our previous four feeds, we now will have a general catch all feed that will grab all of our in-depth tutorials, articles, and reviews.
Full Disclosure
We have gone above and beyond to give you a full outline of how MacZealots is created. From detailed author bios that will give an insight into the authors of the site to a colophon that outlines everything that powers MacZealots, we have spelled out everything that makes MacZealots what it is today. We have also created a FAQ to answer some of the questions that you may have about how the site.
We have also created a privacy policy to ease our commenters’ minds before they post a comment. We also created a detailed comment guideline that will help keep the discussion lively and on topic.
More Fresh Content
As a final gift to the readers, we promise to keep giving you the same great content that you are accustomed to at MacZealots. At our relaunch we will have several new feature articles for you including our in-depth review of Mac OS X Tiger.
What We Wanted
A Refreshed Design
As the site has grown, we have stretched our initial design to its limits. We began to realize what was missing, what needed to be refined, and what needed to go. From there, we set out to spruce up the site’s design. Each area of the website has been given a fresh coat of paint so that its even easier to find the content you are looking for.
Automator For MacZealots
Getting content on MacZealots used to be a time consuming task. We have streamlined it to a two-step process: writing and publishing. Thanks to our entirely automated content publishing system, we no longer have to spend excessive amounts of time perfecting the layout on our site. It is done for us.
Donations
When we set out to create MacZealots, we wanted to give readers the best content possible at a great cost: free! While we still want to offer our content at no charge to you, we have realized that our excessive hosting bills are becoming an issue. Because of that, we have decided to take donations.
Donations allow our readers to pledge their support for the content we write here at MacZealots. There is no set amount to donate, and we won’t badger you to do so. Donations are a personal thing, and we respect that. If you have ever benefited from MacZealots’ content and want to show your patronage, please consider making a contribution.
The money made from these donations will give us the opportunity to provide you with more content and better resources. For example, we would like to be able to purchase cutting-edge hardware from the leading Mac manufacturers for review here on MacZealots. As you may or may not know, we are full-time students at Purdue University who work on this site in between our coursework and part-time campus jobs. We strive to provide the absolute best and most up-to-date coverage of all things Macintosh. We would like to thank you in advance for any pledge of support you make!
How We Delivered
A New Server
We purchased a new, dedicated server to host the MacZealots site. This improves the speed of the site during those peak times when new content is released. It also lets us install all the software we need to make MacZealots’ Web site the best it can be.
Along with the new server, we upgraded the site to Movable Type 3. Thanks to its awesome plugin architecture and new features, publishing new content on the site will be easier than ever. Movable Type 3 should also make the site run much faster, especially when posting new comments.
CSS Reboot
As extra motivation to get the site finished, we entered our new design into the CSS Reboot. CSS Reboot brings together web professionals who design with CSS and web standards in mind to launch their redesigns on May 1st. This is a community project that anyone can participate in and show just how great semantic, accessible design can be.
By entering MacZealots into the CSS Reboot, we raised the bar for ourselves and attempted to make our new site’s design the best it can be. We will be up against some stiff competition in the design world, but we are very proud of what we have accomplished. We just hope they don’t mind if we launch our site a few days early!
Just In Time For Tiger
As with any great undertaking like this, we have been living off adrenaline and caffeine. Sleep has been sacrificed in favor of new content for you, the reader. When Apple announced that Tiger would be released on April 29, we knew we had to get the site done by then. When you return home from the Apple Store with that fresh copy of Tiger, head to MacZealots and check out the new content we have published.
Beyond The Relaunch
The relaunch is not the end of our endeavors. We have a few more things up our sleeve for you.
Dress Your Best
At our initial launch back in 2003, we created t-shirts for our friends and family around Purdue. People who have seen us in the shirts have asked if they could get one. Unfortuantely, we only made twenty of those original shirts (can you say collectors item).
We plan to setup a store for you to order a new MacZealots t-shirt. The design is being finalized, and when it’s ready, we will begin taking orders.
The MacZealots Wiki
A wiki is a collaborative area of the site where you, the reader, can contribute to the content. We want to create a central location for all Macintosh-related information. The MacZealots wiki will have information for switchers, advanced users, developers, and all other types of Mac users.
Having a wiki is a way for readers to voice their opinions on subjects other than those covered in our articles. Many Mac websites have a forum for their readers. We wanted to Think Different.
Sponsorships
We will also begin a sponsorship program for anyone that wants to find affordable advertising. On our sidebar we have placed an area for text based advertisements. These are all managed directly by the MacZealots crew, unlike many sites that are using Google or other hosted ad services.
This benefits you the reader beacuse you know that all of the products advertised on MacZealots are products we believe in and use every day. If you are interested in having your product or company become a sponsor of the MacZealots site, please contact Ryan.
Tying Up The Loose Ends
Thanks for visiting our site and being a faithful MacZealots reader. We hope that our redesign has met your demands. If we did our job right, we exceeded them. Please give us your feedback by contacting any one of the MacZealots authors or by leaving a comment.
Remember, the relaunch will be at exactly 6:01 p.m. EST this Friday, April 29. We hope you will join us in celebrating the new redesign/relaunch of MacZealots!
